DOCTOR. Yes, you must surely know that an insane person loses both civil and family rights.
LAURA. No, I did not know that.
DOCTOR. There was another matter that seemed to me suspicious. He spoke of his communications to his booksellers not being answered. Permit me to ask if you, through motives of mistaken kindness, have intercepted them?
LAURA. Yes, I have. It was my duty to guard the interests of the family, and I could not let him ruin us all without some intervention.
DOCTOR. Pardon me, but I think you cannot have considered the consequences of such an act. If he discovers your secret interference in his affairs, he will have grounds for suspicions, and they will grow like an avalanche. And besides, in doing this you have thwarted his will and irritated him still more. You must have felt yourself how the mind rebels when one's deepest desires are thwarted and one's will is crossed.
LAURA. Haven't I felt that!
DOCTOR. Think, then, what he must have gone through.
LAURA [Rising]. It is midnight and he hasn't come home. Now we may fear the worst.
DOCTOR. But tell me what actually happened this evening after I left. I must know everything.
LAURA. He raved in the wildest way and had the strangest ideas. For instance, that he is not the father of his child.